All Mortal Flesh

  There was no purse.

  He swung toward Lyle. “AllBanc,” he said.

  “I’m on it,” Lyle said, fishing in his jacket for his cell phone.

  Russ headed back through the kitchen, all his dread evaporated in the heat of a possible lead. “I’ll get you the account numbers,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  “You think the perp might have taken her bag?”

  Kevin’s voice surprised him. He hadn’t noticed the kid tagging along in his wake.

  “Yeah,” he said. He wanted to scream, Why didn’t you notice this last night, you idiots?! but he knew recriminations wouldn’t get him results. He opened the door leading from the kitchen into Linda’s office. Two file towers flanked her desk, one for home and one for her business. He yanked open the top drawer of the home file. He might as well use this as a lesson for Flynn. “The perp leaves behind fenceables but takes the purse. What does that tell you?”

  “He’s an amateur,” Kevin said promptly. “An opportunist. He doesn’t know anyone he can palm stolen goods off on, but he can use debit and credit cards.”

  “Good.” Russ opened a folder marked BANK STATEMENTS/CHECKS. It was empty. He bit back a curse. She was so organized, she had already moved last year’s statements to the next drawer down. He slid it open. And there they were, along with folders marked VISA and MASTERCARD and oh, shit, he had to look in her business drawers, too, because she had a corporate American Express and MasterCard and checking account.

  “Here, hold these,” he said, thrusting the folders into Flynn’s hands. He tore open the other drawers, rifling through tabs marked OROCO FABRICS and SOCIAL SECURITY and ACCOUNTS PAYABLE—SEAMSTRESSES until he found the financial materials, which he pulled without examining and laid in Kevin’s arms. He was consumed with a sense of urgency. Linda’s murderer had already had nearly twenty-four hours. What if he had already emptied their accounts and vanished?

  “Take those to Lyle,” he said.

  Kevin sprinted out of the tiny office, leaving Russ alone with the paper trails of his life together with Linda: mortgage payments and electrical bills, credit card statements and snowplowing receipts. It struck him how oddly impersonal their house was without her actual presence, the office organized but not personalized, the rooms decorated but not inhabited. His mind flashed on the St. Alban’s rectory on Elm Street—tabletops cluttered with photographs, books, and mementos spilling off the shelves to sit heaped by squishy armchairs. A note of longing hummed through him, the urge to go to that house and drop into one of those chairs and lay his sorrow before the woman who lived there . . .

  He jerked upright. God, what sort of a monster was he? His wife was on the medical examiner’s slab, and he was comparing her to another woman? He scrubbed at his face as if he could wash his guilt away, knocking his glasses askew. He steadied them, looking more intently at the files. He pulled open the desk drawers. There must be something personal here. Something connecting him to his wife and the two of them to the world at large.

  Her computer. He pushed the on button, riffling through more files while it booted up. He never used the thing—he preferred taking phone calls at the station and being left alone at home—but Linda e-mailed friends, her sister, everybody.

  The screen, which used to feature a slide show of fabric designs, now came up with a mostly naked guy who had more than the usual number of muscles. O-kay. Maybe that was part of the process her therapist wanted her to go through. Getting in touch with who she was in addition to being a wife. His mouth twitched upward. He’d wanted to find something personal. Well, here it was.

  He sat in the rolling desk chair and clicked on the e-mail icon. A sign beneath the window informed him he was downloading mail, and a pulsing bar flashed on and off for almost a minute. When it finished, multiple windows popped up, one laid over the other. One said DEBBIE—her sister. One said SEAM-STRESSES, one IN, one MEG, one eSBW—he clicked on that; it seemed to be a mailing list for the Small Business Women’s Association she belonged to.

  Suddenly, he understood. Organized in cyberspace as well as in the real world, Linda had her e-mail filtering into multiple mailboxes. He clicked on DEBBIE. It looked as if she and Linda had been e-mailing several times a day since November. The most recent one—the one she would never read—was titled “You go, girl!”

  There were a number of e-mails going back and forth that he guessed concerned him; they had subject lines like “That dickweed!!!” and “Men are bastards.” He sagged against the back of the chair. What the hell did he think he was going to find in here? He had told his wife of twenty-five years that he was in love with another woman. What did he think she would be saying to her sister and girlfriends? What a swell guy he was?

  With a masochistic sense of deserving whatever abuse he got, he clicked on the last e-mail from Linda to her sister. The subject, which appeared on a whole slew of e-mails, read “Mr. Sandman.”

  D-

  I’m going to do it. 1. Don’t care 2. Don’t care 3. Don’t care. Give me a call!

  Love, L

  A few messages down, there was one from her sister to her.

  Hi, Lin,

  You need to ask yourself this: 1. Am I doing this just to get back at Russ? 2. Am I ready to be considered a bitch when I slap down Mr. S’s pass? (yes, he will, and yes, you will) 3. Is having some man validate my attractiveness really going to help me figure out what I want?

  You’ve been down this road before, cupcake. Be careful!!

  Love, Deb

  Who the hell was Mr. S, and what was he doing making passes at Russ’s wife? He found the next previous e-mail from Linda.

  D-

  Mr. S knows all about what’s going on with me and R. (In fact, he knows and respects R, which helps.) He’s not going to cross any lines. Meg says I should go for it—escaping from my problems with the help of a handsome man ;) should be good for what ails me.

  Love, L

  Russ sat back in the chair. Someone who knew him. Who knew and respected him. He double-checked the date of the correspondence. The e-mails had all been written during the middle of last week.

  Hi, Lin,

  I think it’s too soon to be dating, if that’s what you mean. Yesterday you were bawling about what you need to do to get your idiot husband’s attention back. Mr. S is looking for love in all the wrong places and he’s pegged you as ND and D (Newly Divorced and Desperate). Except you aren’t divorced and don’t think you want to be. I know you want to give Russ a kick in the teeth but this isn’t the way to do it.

  Love, Deb

  The part of him that was a husband was trying to fit the words “Linda” and “date” together. Even tossing aside their therapist-mandated separation agreement—how the hell could she be thinking about dating? The last time either of them had been out on a date, the Village People had been at the top of the charts and Tug McGraw was telling the Mets “You gotta believe.”

  D-

  Remember the guy I told you about? He’s making me an offer. The kind that’s too good to be true. What do you think?

  Love, L

  The part of him that was a cop was envisioning a scenario that blew MacAuley’s the-chief-was-the-target theory out of the water. “Hey, Lyle,” he yelled. He heard a thwap of files hitting the kitchen table, and then Lyle strolled through the door.

  “AllBanc says no activity on the checking account or the credit cards.”

  Russ waved the information away. “Take a look at these e-mails.” He stood, gesturing for Lyle to take his place. “Linda and her sister, writing to each other.”

  Lyle brought out his reading glasses and leaned toward the monitor.

  “Try this on. There’s an evening or an afternoon out. This guy brings Linda home. Maybe he was tight, or stoned, or maybe he was just the type who liked hurting women.”

  Lyle, engrossed in the screen, made a go ahead noise.

  “He pushed himself onto her. Linda said no. Probably—and I can just imagine
her doing this—she handed him his head on a platter. And then the bastard pulled out his knife and—”

  Where did he get a knife? If they had been on a date? Not that it was a date, of course. Just that the guy, Mr. S, had thought so. But Russ knew Linda, and she wouldn’t have stepped out the door with Mel Gibson himself if he wasn’t dressed right.

  “We don’t have the knife, do we?” he asked Lyle, who had finished with the e-mails Russ had highlighted and was scrolling down the other entries in the mailbox.

  Lyle shook his head.

  Oh, Christ, Russ thought. Oh, Christ, let it not be—“Kevin,” he yelled.

  The kid appeared in the doorway too fast not to have been listening to every word.

  “I’ve got a gun locker in the barn. It’s where I keep my hunting stuff, in the old tack room—”

  Flynn nodded, his red soul patch bobbing up and down hypnotically. “I looked at it, Chief. There are two rifles and a shotgun. All locked down. I thought that was the right count.”

  “It is. What about my knife?”

  “Your knife?”

  “It’s an old military issue K-Bar.” Russ gestured, approximating the size. “I use it for field dressing. It should be wrapped in a flannel cloth, lying on the little shelf next to where I keep my recycled shell casings.”

  Kevin paused. Russ was so used to the young man blurting out whatever was on his mind that it took him a moment to realize Kevin was weighing his words.

  “I saw the shell bucket,” he said carefully. “You can go take a look yourself, but Chief, there’s no knife there.”

  TEN

  Mark hung up the phone and rubbed his eyes. They felt dry, gritty, despite the four hours of sleep he had grabbed at home. Before leaving for her shift at the hospital, Rachel had pointed out very clearly that if he was in the state police, he wouldn’t have to work twenty hours out of twenty-four.

  Harlene poked her head into the squad room. “Anything?”

  He grunted. “Plenty.” He tapped his pen against the pad he had been filling up with names, dates, and addresses. “The trick is going to be following up. Most of these guys were released from Fort Leavenworth. Where they’ve wound up is anyone’s guess.”

  The chief, before leaving for the crime scene this morning, had tried to come up with a few likely names. Guys he had put away over the years who might come gunning for him. He had failed miserably. Of course, the shape he was in, it was a miracle he could remember his own name, let alone some long-gone bad guy. Harlene had come to the rescue, dragging out an ancient paper copy of the chief’s service record, listing posting after posting after posting. A bunch of commendations and medals, too, which the chief had never mentioned. Typical.

  Now Mark was on the trail, convincing records clerks to track down old cases, making notes of their dispositions. “Y’know, Eric McCrea really ought to be doing this,” he told Harlene. “He’s in the National Guard. He knows how to talk to these people.”

  Harlene snorted. “Yeah, like you’re some sort of long-haired hippie who can’t relate. You’re more spit-’n’-polished than anyone in this force, Eric McCrea included.”

  Mark ran his hand over his high-and-tight self-consciously. “Ya think?” He took pride in his appearance. In the discipline of small things.

  Harlene nudged him. “Don’t worry on it. You’re doing good.” She tapped the bone-dry mug sitting next to his pad of paper. “I don’t usually offer, but you look like you could use some coffee.”

  “Thanks, yeah.”

  There was a small noise in the doorway. Mark and Harlene both turned. “Is . . . do you know where Chief Van Alstyne is?”

  Over the past two years, Mark had seen Reverend Clare Fergusson a lot of times, and in a lot of situations you wouldn’t expect to find a priest. He’d seen her late nights at the hospital, soaking wet from the river, splattered with mud and blood and grimy with smoke. But he’d never seen her looking . . . lost. Her dark blond hair was drawn back in a raggedy twist and her skin was taut over her bones, giving her a more pointed expression than usual.

  Harlene, who had—as the chief liked to say—a heart as big as her mouth, crossed the room, opened her arms, and enfolded the taller woman, parka and all. “You heard, did you?”

  The reverend nodded. “I just got back from a week’s retreat this morning. I was in a meeting when my friend Dr. Anne told me.”

  Harlene stepped back but still kept her hands tight over Clare’s arms. “I expect it’s all over the Washington County and Glens Falls hospitals by now. If doctors and nurses could work as fast as they can gossip, there wouldn’t be anybody left sick in this world.”

  “What . . . what happened?”

  Harlene sucked in a breath to tell the priest everything when Mark interrupted. “She was killed sometime this weekend. Maybe Monday. That’s all we really know right now.”

  The reverend’s eyes were huge in her narrow face. “It couldn’t have been an accident?”

  Mark shook his head. She looked down at the floor. “I didn’t think so,” she said. “I just hoped . . .” She raised her head, focusing on Harlene. “I don’t even know if it’s a good idea for me to contact Russ or not. But I had to do something. How is he?”

  Mark leaped in before Harlene could speak again. “I guess you’d have to compare him to how he was. When did you see him last?”

  “Um.” She hesitated. “This is Tuesday. About two weeks ago, then.”

  Harlene was looking at Mark curiously. He ignored her. “Didn’t you two usually have lunch together Wednesdays? At the Kreemy Kakes Diner?”

  “Not since . . .” She blinked at Harlene, then at him. Her cheeks were warming to a bright rose color. “I’m not sure if you know, but he was having some . . . difficulties at home . . .”

  “His wife kicked him out, and he went to stay with Margy Van Alstyne. Ayeah. We know all about it,” Harlene said.

  “Oh. Well, we haven’t—the last time I had lunch with him was right before that.”

  “And of course, you were away for this retreat all last week,” Mark said. “Where was that? Does St. Alban’s have some sort of place where you guys can escape to?”

  Her greenish-brown eyes sharpened. “Officer Durkee, if you want to know something, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t hide behind the veneer of conversation.”

  He held up his hands. “Not meaning any disrespect, Reverend. But you are friends with the chief. And you knew Mrs. Van Alstyne.”

  “We had met. I wouldn’t say that I knew her.”

  He chose his next words carefully. “Ma’am, one of the theories we’re working off of is that whoever killed Mrs. Van Alstyne was trying to hurt the chief. Either they were going after him and didn’t find him there, or they went after Mrs. Van Alstyne deliberately, to, you know, punish the chief. So I’d like to know where you were and if you noticed anything odd while you were there.”

  She paled, throwing her high cheekbones and sharp nose into stark relief. “I stayed at a cabin up by Abenaki Lake. It’s owned by one of my parishioners, Leland Fitzgerald. It’s remote—three roads off of Route 77. I certainly didn’t see anything unusual while I was there.”

  “No visitors?”

  She looked at him, her eyes clear and steady. “Deacon Willard Aberforth came up to see me the day before I left. To let me know the diocese was assigning St. Alban’s a new deacon to help out.”

  He wasn’t going to get anything else out of her. Her back was up. “Thanks, Reverend,” he said. “Every piece of information, even if it’s in the negative, helps us get a little bit closer.”

  She twitched in acknowledgment. “Harlene,” she said, “do you think I could leave a note for . . . for the chief?”

  Harlene nodded. “Of course. You come right into his office.” Mark could hear the dispatcher as she led Reverend Fergusson across the way. “And you know who could probably use a visit? The chief’s mother . . .” Her voice faded to a muffled sound behind the office door.

/>   In a moment she was back, hands on her formidable hips, springy gray curls quivering with indignation. “What was the meaning of that?” she hissed at him.

  “What?”

  “Sssh. Keep your voice down. You know what. Cross-examining Reverend Clare like that.”

  He shrugged. “Just keeping track of the players, that’s all.”

  “In a pig’s eye. I’ve been working dispatch since your mama had you in Pampers. Don’t think I don’t know when someone’s being considered a suspect.”

  “Harlene.” He leaned forward, dropping his voice. “Think about it. She’s the reason the chief and his wife separated.”

  “What are you, their marriage counselor? You don’t know that.”

  “They’ve got something going on. Half the town knows it. She’s an army vet, she’s got training in survival skills, hell, she probably knows how to kill somebody with a rock and a pointed stick.”

  Harlene frowned furiously at him but let him continue.

  “Now she’s out of town, all alone, no alibi for a week. During which time Mrs. Van Alstyne, her rival”—he held up one hand to forestall Harlene’s explosion—“is knifed to death. And right afterward, she conveniently returns home to find out what’s happened.”

  Harlene’s eyes bulged. “She’s a priest, for God’s sake!”

  “Oh, that’s right,” he said. “I forgot. Priests never do anything wrong. Hello? Catholic choirboys?”

  “You can’t seriously think she did it.”

  He shrugged. “She’s always seemed nice enough, sure. But hell, Harlene, even nice people can do some pretty bad things when push comes to shove. I’ll tell you this”—he nodded toward where the squad room door stood ajar—“I don’t think she’s telling us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”